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Comment by sdo72 | Hacker News Reader

Everyone has only 1 life, imprisonment of a life is one of the ultimate forms of torturing. This basically is killing his most meaningful years away.

I can only agree this form of imprisonment for murderers, rapists, ones who physically and mentally hurt people with permanent losses.

Ones can argue that he mentally & physically hurt others, but we need evidence. We should have a better system to force these individuals to pay back or make up the losses. Of course, he will never be able to pay back all the losses, but at least that's a better punishment and I'm almost certain every prisoner will agree to do. They will absolutely trade all of their finances for x years in exchange for freedom.

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Without the swift promise of decades in prison, what prevents the "next SBF" from committing similar crimes and causing similar damage?

> Everyone has only 1 life

Doesn't that make imprisonment (the ultimate time penalty) one of the fairest, most equitable punishments there is?

> We should have a better system to force these individuals to pay back or make up the losses.

As you say, he'll never be able to pay it back. The state can't force him to pursue high-paying work, and he goes unpunished in the meantime?

I think what's going on right now isn't deterring people from committing frauds like SBF either.

I think imprisonment doesn't make it's one of the fairest penalty. A set of humans made that up to imprison/strip away freedom/rights of other humans. No human at birth signs these laws, it is all made up by the people with power.

I agree that creating a system to force him payback is challenging, there's no easy way to create a system like that. Maybe something as simple as 50% tax to start with for the rest of his life as long as he belongs to this society.

Personally, I think we should offer prisoners corporal punishment alternatives. Flogging every six months for ten years, plus fines, plus community service, plus you can't handle investors money or be in the c-suite or start a company, and you pay double taxes seems fair to me.

This type of imprisonment is just as much to scare other people as it is to punish him. Repaying the people he stole from is also required here, but that has no meaning as a deterrent.

Imagining how much more value he could produce and even pay back if he's not imprisoned.

lol

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